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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Friday, February 18, 2011

entry arrow2:45 AM | How to Dress Up in Movies

The ritual for dressing up or for pampering men's style, in Hollywood movies, has always fascinated me. Two great examples of golden boys -- metrosexuals? -- preparing for the day immediately come to mind. Here is the glorious Richard Gere, a high-rolling Hollywood call boy, meticulously putting together his wardrobe for the day in Paul Schrader's difficult and often misunderstood American Gigolo [1980]...



... and here is its twin: Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman, Wall Street Master of the Universe by day and serial killer by night, narrating and explaining his bodily rituals in Mary Harron's brilliantly conceived adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho [2000], also difficult and also misunderstood.



Two decades apart, but they seem to be apt mirror-images that scour the dark landscape of machismo in the limbo of Western materialism. (That both films proclaim themselves "American" in their titles also makes one wonder.)

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